Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Korean-Style Kimchi Pancake | Kimchi Jun (김치전)

My sister has whined to me several times that my old kimchi jun post is inaccurate. She said the ratio of flour to liquid was off and when she tried to make them, they came out really chunky. So, I'm here to redo the post. I made these recently and used a measuring cup to make sure I could give some accurate measurements.

Ingredients:
½ cup chopped kimchi
1 long hot pepper, sliced
2 tablespoons hot pepper paste
pinch of salt
¾ to 1 cup flour
1 egg
¼ cup water
oil for frying
Start by chucking the kimchi, hot pepper paste, salt, and egg into a big mixing bowl. Stir everything together. Add in the hot peppers, about 1/2 cup of flour, and the water and mix to combine. Add more flour, start with 1/4 cup, until the batter's pretty thick. It should be about the consistency of cake batter.

Add a bit of oil to a large frying pan - I used sesame oil and a 12" pan, which was the perfect size to take all of the batter. Swirl the pan around to evenly distribute the oil and then add the batter to the pan. Use a spoon to spread the batter around. If you're using a smaller frying pan, you might do this in a few batches and make two or three cakes of a smaller diameter.

Let the pancake cook for about 6 minutes until it's crispy. The batter on top should start to set up. Flip the pancake and cook again for about 3 to 4 minutes on the second side until crisp.

Serve the jun while it's still hot and cut it into wedges. I like using a pizza cutter.